According to TechCrunch, the anonymous messaging app NGL announced on Friday that it has been acquired by Mode Mobile, a smartphone rewards company. NGL, launched in late 2021, quickly climbed the App Store charts but became embroiled in controversy for using fake automated messages to trick users. The FTC concluded a two-year investigation in 2024, banning NGL from offering its app to minors and levying a $5 million fine after finding executives laughed off complaining users as “suckers.” Founders Raj Vir and Joao Figueiredo are moving on, while the app’s three remaining employees will join Mode Mobile. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.
A match made in hell
Look, if you were going to design a corporate marriage purely based on shared values of questionable user exploitation, you couldn’t do much better than this. NGL’s entire business was built on a shady growth hack: sending fake, enticing messages to make users think they had secret admirers, then charging them $9.99 a month for “hints” about who sent them. The FTC literally called it a “bait-and-switch.” And now it’s been bought by a company whose entire model is, basically, your phone is a billboard you carry in your pocket. Mode Mobile’s so-called “earnphone” generates revenue by flooding users with ads for tasks like listening to music or browsing the web. So we’re moving from psychological manipulation to pure, unadulterated attention extraction. It’s a perfect fit.
The FTC’s drastic move
Here’s the thing that really stands out: the FTC’s 2024 action against NGL was described as one of its “most drastic interventions” to protect minors online. They didn’t just fine them; they banned the app from being offered to kids entirely. That’s a huge deal. It shows how seriously regulators are starting to take the tangible harm these “fun, anonymous” platforms can cause, especially after the tragic links to teen bullying and suicide that got similar apps booted from Snapchat. So what does Mode Mobile think it’s buying, exactly? A brand that’s permanently tarnished and legally restricted from a huge chunk of its original market. Unless their plan is to pivot NGL’s tech toward serving more ads to adults, which, let’s be honest, seems entirely plausible.
What’s the endgame here?
Reading between the lines of the acquisition announcement and Mode’s investor materials, this feels less like a product acquisition and more like a talent/tech grab for an aggressive ad network. NGL’s team built an app that hooked a young demographic and drove engagement through not-so-ethical means. Mode Mobile needs engagement—user “attention”—to sell to its advertising partners. Put those two things together, and you can see the cynical logic. They’re not buying a community; they’re buying a sophisticated engagement engine. The founders are leaving with their FTC fine paid, the remaining staff gets a job, and Mode gets some tech and know-how. Everyone wins, except maybe the user who just wants a phone that isn’t constantly trying to trick them or sell to them.
A cautionary tale
This whole saga is a pretty stark lesson in the lifecycle of a certain kind of consumer tech startup. Launch with a viral, ethically-dubious hook, ride the growth wave, get slapped by regulators, and then get quietly absorbed by a larger entity whose business model is even *less* concerned with user well-being. It’s the circle of life in the dark forest of the app economy. And it makes you wonder what’s next. Will we see a new, Mode-branded anonymous app that “rewards” you for viewing ads between messages? I wouldn’t bet against it. In the meantime, the whole story is a good reminder: if the product is free—or worse, if it *pays you*—you’re not the customer. You’re the product being sold, over and over again.
